Ioulia Akhmadeeva to receive Eréndira State Arts Award 2026

The Michoacán Secretariat of Culture has announced that visual artist Ioulia Akhmadeeva will receive the 2026 Eréndira State Arts Award in the field of visual arts. This award is the highest artistic recognition granted by the Government of Michoacán.

Akhmadeeva, a Russian-born artist who has lived in Michoacán since 1993 and became a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1999, is being honored for her three-decade career. Her work focuses on themes of memory, migration, identity, and displacement through various media, including printmaking, drawing, photography, and installation.

Her professional background includes serving as a professor-researcher at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo since 2001. Her artwork is held in several prestigious collections, including the Library of Congress and universities such as Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and Toronto.